1692

By Kate Levin

Bring me the bowl so I can spit:wild venom, woman at the stake, sweetkindling. Hard hands, all that wind.

I think about my grandmother, laceand ribbon, saccharine and secretlike a box of marzipan. Those strangeglances between rooms, moonlight burninga hole in the Turkish rug.

I was born between the legs of fire.

I move too quickly, white porcelain crushedunder the heart of me.I think of my mother, alone in this world.

The baby and always the sunrise.

Bring me the fur so I can sit:feed the familiar, legs outstretched,breasts heavy.What a curse, this beautythat won’t

drown.

Self-professed crazy cat lady and black coffee addict, Kate Levin graduated from UNC with a degree in English Literature. Her poetry has been featured in several student publications, most notably The Crucible. She is the first-place finalist of the 2016 Rosenberry Writer Awards in poetry and the winner of the Rosenberry Prize for her poem, “When Mourning Comes.” She is also the author of her self-published poetry chapbook, Letters to the Wind.